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<p>xiggi, my good friend. Do you have a source for your supposition?</p>
<p>Alexandre: I can’t vouch for the differences between 20k students and 40k, but IMO there is a noticeable difference below ~10k and the big Unis.</p>
<p>I think the feel of the school is more about how many undergrads they have. Grad students don’t take the same classes, don’t participate in most undergrad activities, and spend a good part of most days holed up doing research after they are done taking classes. The profs usually make damned sure of that last aspect. And yes, I have done both at a mid-sized private (undergrad) and a Big 10 state school (grad). So Columbia, with 6,000 undergrads, does feel very different than Michigan with 26,000 undergrads. Being a grad student is way more like having a job than being a student.</p>
<p>Alexandre, how can you argue with my opinion? <em>I</em> notice a difference. It would be a difference that would be meaningful to me in making a choice, and I have a preference for one over the other. I can get not <em>caring</em> or being indifferent between the two options, but not <em>noticing</em> would be akin to looking at Harvard and Stanford in the wintertime and not noticing that one was appreciably warmer than the other.</p>
<p>Alex,
I’m fully behind p’girl on this matter of size and feel. A school’s undergrad population is an enormously important number as it has ramifications on the breadth of what the school offers and the ability of a student to easily access those offerings. </p>
<p>IMO, there is a meaningful difference in feel between a mid-sized private like Duke or Brown and a smallish public like U Virginia or U North Carolina. Take this up another notch to big state Us like U Michigan and UCLA and the differences vs. Duke, Brown et al are enormous. </p>
<p>However, this size difference becomes less important as you get larger, eg, Ohio State vs U Michigan. Both are huge and the anonymity factor is high on both campuses.</p>
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Yes, because on a 6-10k student campus everybody knows your name… :rolleyes:</p>
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<p>With facebook going on you would be surprised</p>
<p>^ Yeah, I would be…part of the reason why I don’t facebook.</p>
<p>ucb,
Increments of 4000 additional students are IMO meaningful although this effect declines as the school sizes increase. </p>
<p>Compare a LAC with 2000 and a mid-sized private with 6000. It’s different. </p>
<p>Compare a mid-sized private 6000 with a mid-sized public with 14,000. It’s really different.</p>
<p>Compare a big public with 26,000 with an even bigger public with 38,000 and it’s not enormously different.</p>
<p>I have been following this dialogue and have been amused by much of the banter. PizzaGirl, I have to agree with UCBChemEGrad on this one:</p>
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<p>Unless you plan on going to a tiny LAC like Williams or Amherst, college isn’t like Cheers; people aren’t going to stop what they’re doing when you walk onto the student center and say, “Norm!”. I had your reservations this past spring and was concerned when our daughter told us she had selected UVA over privates like BC Honors and Northwestern just to name a few. Like you, I had preconceptions of a public school as being crowded, underfunded, and incapable of providing that nurturing environment that I felt was most certainly found at the privates she had applied to. When we went to Days on the Lawn, my fears were dispelled. I recognized why my daughter had been drawn to the school: it offered strong academics, great traditions, and as she put it “fun kids and not a bunch of grade grinding nerds.” It was the only public we visited and yet I can honestly say it felt NO different from the numerous privates we toured. Perhaps a super-big school like UMich, UT, or Ohio State might lack that personal charm, but UVa, with its 13,500 students possessed the same vibe as Vanderbilt, Northwestern, an WUST. As far as the USNWR goes, I agree that the methodology will continue to favor the elite privates; however, I don’t think this publication has or ever will have any effect on the final outcome at most universities.</p>
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<p>Nah, only in Boston at Cheers!</p>
<p>^ Haha…I actually had that theme song in my head when I wrote it. Dung…da, da, da, da, da, daaa…donnng</p>
<p>No one claimed that on a 6-10k campus that you walk down the street and everybody knows your name. However, it is a different scale than 20K plus. An infrastructure set up to accommodate a smaller group feels different from an infrastructure set up to accommodate a larger group. Good grief, a boutique hotel feels different from the 1000 room hotel that is set up to handle conventions. </p>
<p>Why do some of you get so testy when these differences are pointed out? I didn’t make a value judgment on them. Is this yet another installment of every thread on cc turning to a defense of Michigan or Berkeley and the discomfort their alums feel when not everyone bows down to those schools? They’re both great schools – chill already, why the constant need for validation?</p>
<p>Jc40 -UVA is one of my favorite schools and I agree with you – it has a vibe more similar to the schools you mentioned. </p>
<p>I never once suggested large public meant underfunded or crowded.</p>
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<p>Seems like it. I have been following this section of CC for a couple of days out of boredom, and it follows a very interesting pattern in response to schools like berkeley and michigan. There alumnis seem adamant at classifying them as top schools versus the ivies. </p>
<p>Who cares?</p>
<p>Sefago, you should learn to respect other people’s opinions. And if the alums of a particular college or university think their alma matter is good contrary to the opinion of the academic world, theirs would indeed be merely an opinion. On the other hand, if the academic world also believes that their college or university are among the best, it ceases to be an opinion, don’t you think? Regardless, respect is key here.</p>
<p>And why do you pick on Cal and Michigan? Current students and alums from several other universities (Duke, Emory, Notre Dame to name a few) are just as adamant (and repetitive) that their schools are good. At least Cal and Michigan alums seem to respect other universities. I cannot say the same of students from many other universities on these boards.</p>
<p>Alexandre, I think very highly of U Michigan, for the record. It would not be my <em>personal</em> choice for my children, both of whom are better suited to much smaller schools by temperament, but I cannot argue that it is not a fine, fine school. I work with U Michigan alums in my business and am unfailingly extremely impressed. Many are “superstars” in my field. </p>
<p>However – the question does beg itself. Why is it so important to constantly assert how very good Michigan is versus the Ivies, et al?<br>
Why isn’t the quiet satisfaction of knowing that you went to an excellent school, got an excellent education, did the things you intended to do with it, enough? So some people might not consider it Ivy-level or whatever. So? How does that affect you in the least? You’ve gotten where you wanted to / needed to go, professionally. The people who matter in your world respect the Michigan degree. </p>
<p>It just comes across as so needy. And I see this for Michigan, Berkeley, and Duke in particular on these boards. This constant “but I’m superb tooooooo!” It sounds very desperate. Why not just a quiet satisfaction with excellent schools / educations? Why the desperate “count ME in the top toooo!”</p>
<p>“Alexandre, I think very highly of U Michigan, for the record. It would not be my <em>personal</em> choice for my children, both of whom are better suited to much smaller schools by temperament, but I cannot argue that it is not a fine, fine school. I work with U Michigan alums in my business and am unfailingly extremely impressed. Many are “superstars” in my field.” </p>
<p>Pizzagirl, I know where you stand on Michigan. I was no referring to you.</p>
<p>"However – the question does beg itself. Why is it so important to constantly assert how very good Michigan is versus the Ivies, et al? Why isn’t the quiet satisfaction of knowing that you went to an excellent school, got an excellent education, did the things you intended to do with it, enough? So some people might not consider it Ivy-level or whatever. So? How does that affect you in the least? You’ve gotten where you wanted to / needed to go, professionally. The people who matter in your world respect the Michigan degree. "</p>
<p>In my daily life, I never have to discuss Michigan. Like you, virtually everybody I have ever worked with has been respectful of Michigan. Look, I will not speak for Duke, but in the case of Cal and Michigan, they really get bashed badly on CC. If it weren’t for posters such as UCBChem and myself, constantly correcting ignorant posters, those two schools would be considered second rate schools on this forum. Countless threads have been created by regular posters that deliberately place Cal and Michigan out of the top 30 universities in the nation. For the sake of impressionable students, I cannot stand and watch. If you payclose attention, I seldom interject unless somebody is truly putting a university down…and not just Cal and Michigan. I have defended many other universities on these boards. If I come across a thread or a post that represents a university or college unfairly, I will usually step in and stand up for that school.</p>
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<p>hmm . . . and you are doing the same thing again. In the academic world no one thinks Michigan undergrad is an elite, however they are aware that their grad programs cover a large number of the top 10. </p>
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<p>Well actually I think the same of alumni from every school including Harvard who engage in this sort of self-promotion. Infact, anytime I see self-promotion from alumni and current students of my undergrad, I usually start laughing. Its so funny. </p>
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<p>Thats the point I am trying to make. For example, after college, I applied for internships in Europe, and no one I talked to had ever heard of my undergrad. But they were impressed by my CV, and activities, which I was able to do because of my undergrad. So, I am still confused why people are so obsessed with which is better. Even for jobs such as IB which place a premium on “top schools”, going to Michigan or Berkeley would not put you at a disadvantage vs going to Harvard if you are an awesome student.</p>
<p>So why care? Why try to convince a large number of high school students, most who have never worked anywhere in their life, that a school is equivalent to this?</p>
<p>Anyhoo, gotta go and watch the world cup.</p>
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<p>Who would really take such threads seriously??</p>
<p>I have to agree with Alex on this one. CC serves many purposes, but certainly one of the most important is to understand the positives and negatives of various schools. I wish that would happen with people only stating the things that they found good and bad (or at least less good) about their schools or schools about which they have actual knowledge, but unfortunately there are posters that think the best way to build up one school is to tear down others. Sometimes it isn’t even to build up their school, but only to tear down others, and often this consists of blatently false statements, other times more subtle disparagements. Some of these posters are serial offenders, others hit and run. But because we all know that many people coming to CC for information are far less aware of the facts, those of us that care about our alma maters or our kid’s school or for whatever reason choose to want to set the record straight also choose to not just let it go.</p>
<p>Needless to say, Tulane falls in that category a lot. People just drink 24/7, it is in a highly dangerous neighborhood, it is still underwater from Katrina (LOL), so on and so forth. All just completely wrong, but things that might also be believed by the unsuspecting parent or student. So while I am extremely satisfied with my education at Tulane, my ties afterwards and how it helped lead to a great career for me, I don’t see why I would just let that self-satisfaction keep me from correcting those falsehoods and telling others the positive things I know and feel about the school. In fact, based on my experiences, I would say it would logically lead to my wanting to inform people. Yes, hopefully not in an obnixious evangelical ferverous way, but in a factual and polite way, which I think Alex does. He and I don’t always agree, but I think he is respectful of other schools and quite reasonable in the way he expresses his opinion on the various factors concerning Michigan. Again, that is a lot of what CC is about.</p>